kindms:All2morrowsparTs: detritus: Yet Iran managed to intercept and land unscathed a top-secret stealth RQ-170 drone which really pissed off the US. They must have fixed the vulnerability.The question is, was this a stealth drone or not, and did their assumed reverse-engineering of the stealth technology on the RQ-170 lead to them detecting it? The US must have balls of steel to do this and risk exposure. Not sure what right a foreign nation has flying a drone in another country. We certainly wouldn't stand for it...

This was over international airspace.

says the US military. The Iranians claim they were over Iranian air space. I highly doubt that Iran is going to send air to ground fighters in to International airspace looking for drones to shoot down.

If the Iranians were flying drones near or over our airspace I think the response would be a lot worse than firing on the drone.

International airspace is 12 miles from shore. Those planes were probably up there on a routine patrol or training flight, when the pilots decided to go play a little. The Revolutionary Guard is notoriously ill-disciplined.

If it were actually in Iranian airspace, they probably would have shot it down with a SAM; it's well within range even in international airspace.

No no, you got it all wrong. If they shoot one down, it's an act of war. We must send in hundreds of thousand of Americans to get revenge. Plus we'll need to give Raytheon a couple of billion taxpayer dollars to develop a force field shield for the drones so the tragedy can never happen again.

orezona:Would have been a much different outcome if one of these had shown up:[www.aerospaceweb.org image 550x329]/still a little sad the only place the Tomcat is being flown is by those assholes

Here's where, if I were an internet douchebag, I'd jump down your throat for suggesting that one of the biggest fighters ever fielded (designed that way to carry big honkin' air-to-air missiles to shoot down big honkin' Russky bombers and a big honkin' radar to guide them) would mop the floor with a drone whose radar signature is almost too small for one of those radars to lock on and whose top speed can be accomplished by my Hyundai on a long gentle downhill.

No no, you got it all wrong. If they shoot one down, it's an act of war. We must send in hundreds of thousand of Americans to get revenge. Plus we'll need to give Raytheon a couple of billion taxpayer dollars to develop a force field shield for the drones so the tragedy can never happen again.

Guess what? The people who think like that lost the election Tuesday.

If they keep screwing around, we might take out their air defense systems, but that would involve only 2-3 carrier battle groups. There's certainly no danger of us trying to invade; what would be the point?

mbillips:I imagine if they really wanted to shoot it down, they would have. It was over international waters; this looks like the kind of crap the Soviets used to do with our ships in the Black Sea. Playing chicken, bumping, etc.

I've seen some other commentators say that they might have just been warning shots to get our attention ('cause we already know they're attention whores). IMO it's also possible that, if those cannons are armed with proximity rounds, that the pilot was told to bring it down without seriously damaging the fuselage, so they can try to reverse-engineer some of the technology.

All2morrowsparTs:detritus: Yet Iran managed to intercept and land unscathed a top-secret stealth RQ-170 drone which really pissed off the US. They must have fixed the vulnerability.The question is, was this a stealth drone or not, and did their assumed reverse-engineering of the stealth technology on the RQ-170 lead to them detecting it? The US must have balls of steel to do this and risk exposure. Not sure what right a foreign nation has flying a drone in another country. We certainly wouldn't stand for it...

This was over international airspace.

En route to....? Not like we haven't intercepted aircraft over international airspace if it's headed in our direction.

The Wikipedia and other sources claim that SU-25 has a service ceiling of 23,000 feet. Link

Does that seem odd given that the SU-25 was a jet first flown in 1975, and is claimed to have a rate of climb 11,000 feet per minute? Compared to the A-10, the SU-25 has about the same thrust, (9000 lbf), but weighs about half.

How can a "modern jet", even a ground attack fighter, only have a ceiling of 23,000 feet?

Ahmadinejad: So we attacked a Drone, but didn't shot it down.Khamenei: A Drone? Of course we didn't shot it down! Bumblebees are tiny.Ahmadinejad: No, not a bee, a pilotless aircraft.Khamenei: Our planes don't have pilots?Ahmadinejad: No, our planes has pilots, theirs don't.Khamenei: How do they fly?Ahmadinejad: By remote control.Khamenei: Using bees?Ahmadinejad: Just stop okay?Khamenei: Okay.

The Wikipedia and other sources claim that SU-25 has a service ceiling of 23,000 feet. Link

Does that seem odd given that the SU-25 was a jet first flown in 1975, and is claimed to have a rate of climb 11,000 feet per minute? Compared to the A-10, the SU-25 has about the same thrust, (9000 lbf), but weighs about half.

How can a "modern jet", even a ground attack fighter, only have a ceiling of 23,000 feet?

Are there any other jets like that that seem so limited?

Information I can find says the ceiling is actually closer to 10,000 meters or ~33,000 feet. Which seems a bit more realistic.

orezona:Would have been a much different outcome if one of these had shown up:

[www.aerospaceweb.org image 550x329]

/still a little sad the only place the Tomcat is being flown is by those assholes

Probably not actually. The Boeing support people nicked all the fire control computers before they left. Iran's F-14s can't shoot missiles. At this point, I wonder how many of them can even fly anymore. It isn't like they can easily get parts to fix them.

VegasVinnie:santini: Allen262: Iran used Su-25s. You know GROUND ATTACK aircraft? This would be like the U.S. sending up A-10s to shoot down a aircraft.

Link

Well the A-10 does have at least one air to air kill, it was a helicopter though

Link

OMG WTF HAX!!!

my favorite part was when they said "We tried to ID the helicopter after we were done and it was just in a bunch of little pieces, so we can't tell what type it was." 30 MM gatling cannons firing at 3000 rounds per minute tend to do that.

Does the Su-25 have a pressurized cockpit? The limit could be human factors rather than aerodynamic.

And keep in mind, it was designed a Soviet close air support plane. No reason or money to give it extra capabilities.

But I think the definition of ceiling is more an aerodynamic definition.

It's the max altitude an aircraft can attain. So your aircraft is presumably pitched for climb, with engines at max, but no longer climbing, but flying at the same consistent altitude.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiling_(aircraft)

I know very little about aerodynamics, it just seems odd that a jet aircraft that can fly almost 600 mph, climb at sea level at 11,000 feet per minute, would top out lower than some single engine piston engined aircraft.

I am not saying it doesn't, or that there aren't reasons for that, I am more curious as to what those reasons might be.

Check out this flight envelope for the F-104: http://starfighter.no/web/envel-e.html. The square edge on the right at Mach 2 is an artificial limit because the original customer (USAF) didn't care to have it certified past Mach 2.0. It can go to Mach 2.2 or so near 50,000 feet without melting anything. (Some newer fighters have Mach limits of 2.0 or less because the canopy melts or something silly like that, but the F-104 is a real fighter not a plastic toy.)

Check out this flight envelope for the F-104: http://starfighter.no/web/envel-e.html. The square edge on the right at Mach 2 is an artificial limit because the original customer (USAF) didn't care to have it certified past Mach 2.0. It can go to Mach 2.2 or so near 50,000 feet without melting anything. (Some newer fighters have Mach limits of 2.0 or less because the canopy melts or something silly like that, but the F-104 is a real fighter not a plastic toy.)

That is interesting. I know how to read much of that but I don't understand the 0.1G or 0.5G Stall Lines, or why the zoom boundary is less at Mach 2.0 than at Mach 1.0.

RoyBatty:I know very little about aerodynamics, it just seems odd that a jet aircraft that can fly almost 600 mph, climb at sea level at 11,000 feet per minute, would top out lower than some single engine piston engined aircraft.

I am not saying it doesn't, or that there aren't reasons for that, I am more curious as to what those reasons might be.

Both aerodynamics and engine ability. There's less oxygen higher up, different engines perform better at different elevations.

The zoom envelope assumes you start within the level flight envelope at top speed. You gain altitude by losing speed. If you slowed to Mach 1 you turned more kinetic energy into potential energy than if you remained near Mach 2.

The zoom envelope assumes you start within the level flight envelope at top speed. You gain altitude by losing speed. If you slowed to Mach 1 you turned more kinetic energy into potential energy than if you remained near Mach 2.

Okay thanks. So do you know how to read the 0.1G and 0.5G stall lines?

The "stall speed" of an airplane is normally the speed at which the wings can pull 1g, sufficient to maintain level flight. It is not the speed at which the airplane goes out of control. If you're willing to pitch down you can keep flying at less than 1g for a while.

The .1 and .5 lines are where the wings can exert a force equal to 10% and 50% of the airplane's weight. You reach these lines while in a climb. Gravity is pulling the nose down and will eventually force the airplane back below the 1g line.

Imagine driving in snow, or on a wet track. You can go into a turn knowing the wheels will slide. The car may still be under control.

At sufficiently high altitude the wings and airframe don't have enough lift to keep the airplane under control. One of the super zoom altitude records was aided by rocket thrusters keeping the pointy end of the airplane aimed in the right direction. Without assistance the airplane would have tumbled out of control. In the car example, this is where your rear wheels snap out and you spin.

The "stall speed" of an airplane is normally the speed at which the wings can pull 1g, sufficient to maintain level flight. It is not the speed at which the airplane goes out of control. If you're willing to pitch down you can keep flying at less than 1g for a while.

The .1 and .5 lines are where the wings can exert a force equal to 10% and 50% of the airplane's weight. You reach these lines while in a climb. Gravity is pulling the nose down and will eventually force the airplane back below the 1g line.

Imagine driving in snow, or on a wet track. You can go into a turn knowing the wheels will slide. The car may still be under control.

At sufficiently high altitude the wings and airframe don't have enough lift to keep the airplane under control. One of the super zoom altitude records was aided by rocket thrusters keeping the pointy end of the airplane aimed in the right direction. Without assistance the airplane would have tumbled out of control. In the car example, this is where your rear wheels snap out and you spin.

No no, you got it all wrong. If they shoot one down, it's an act of war. We must send in hundreds of thousand of Americans to get revenge. Plus we'll need to give Raytheon a couple of billion taxpayer dollars to develop a force field shield for the drones so the tragedy can never happen again.

Guess what? The people who think like that lost the election Tuesday.

If they keep screwing around, we might take out their air defense systems, but that would involve only 2-3 carrier battle groups. There's certainly no danger of us trying to invade; what would be the point?

I believe the point is that a nuclear weapon is a bit more complicated than a missile but Iran can't seem to get even their missiles to work. Yet we've been bombarded for nearly a decade with propaganda about how Iran is always "a few months away" from building a nuke and how we simply MUST go in there right now and bomb something "before it's too late."

It is my understanding that the hard part about building a nuke is enriching enough uranium to a high enough level. The actual exploding of the bomb is a bit simpler... if you will notice, iran has been working on that hard first part, which pretty much just takes time once you figure it out...

Does the Su-25 have a pressurized cockpit? The limit could be human factors rather than aerodynamic.

Aircraft optimized for different roles have different engines and different aerodynamics. A plane the cruises at supersonic speed flies at high altitude and looks more like an arrow than an airplane. It's engines are designed to operate most efficiently at high altitude and take in air at a high rate of speed.

Supersonic fighters are notoriously bad at low speed maneuvers. In particular, the have to maintain at least 100 miles per hour or so just to have enough lift to stay in the air. (What we call stall speed.)

Ground attack craft are built to have a low stall speed, and their engines are designed to operate at low altitude at low speed. Thus why an A-10 looks so different than an F-14 or an F-22. An A-10 can fly much slower.